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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23373289">starman</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheUltimateFandomer/pseuds/copperbasedblood'>copperbasedblood (TheUltimateFandomer)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Agricultural Knowledge, Alternate Universe, Crash Landing, F/F, Gen, Government Conspiracy, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mentions of Buzzfeed Unsolved, Vulcan Biology, yes I hate my original url too</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 13:20:39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,275</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23373289</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheUltimateFandomer/pseuds/copperbasedblood</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>At thirty-five years old, James Kirk doesn't have much to his name. A small cornfield, a few friends, and a degree in agriculture from Iowa State make up his most prized possessions. For years, he considered a letter from the mayor about his record-breaking crop yield as the most interesting thing that had happened to him.</p><p>Finding the remnants of a mangled tin can with someone inside, though; that's gotta take the top spot.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ben Sulu/Hikaru Sulu, James T. Kirk/Spock</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>29</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>starman</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>title - starman, by david bowie.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>If this were the beginning of a movie, he’d be woken up by the crow of a rooster atop his home. He’d swing both legs out of bed and turn, glancing out of the window at a beautiful sunrise as he begins his day at the crack of dawn.</p><p>Real life isn’t like a movie at all, though, and this is why James Kirk all but falls out of bed at two in the afternoon, the sun already set firmly in its place in the sky.</p><p>“Shit,” he says as his elbow hits the nightstand, “shit, shit, shit, shit -”</p><p>He swipes up his phone, cringing against the bright light it shines into still-sleepy eyes. With a tap, he turns off his alarms set for eight, eight-fifteen, eight-thirty, and eight forty-five, respectively. When he sees the time, he groans, flopping back onto the mattress, already composing an explanatory, mainly apologetic, text.</p><p><em> “hey,” </em> he types out, <em> “I just woke up :( can we take a rain check?” </em></p><p>The reply is immediate, which only makes Kirk feel even worse, knowing that Ben must’ve been awake for hours already. <em> “Of course. Demora’s excitement can wait a day, lol. Tomorrow?” </em></p><p>Kirk sighed in relief. <em> “that’d be perfect! I’ll come get y’all at nine.” </em></p><p>
  <em> “Can’t wait!” </em>
</p><p>He chucked his phone onto his bed, yawning as he stands up. As he takes a step, his foot hits the pair of jeans he’d thrown on the floor yesterday. With a shrug, he picks them up, along with a shirt he’d hung off the back of his desk chair, and goes to the bathroom to change.</p><p>The Sulu family had moved in next door to Kirk about a month ago, and he’s surprised they hadn’t set fire to his house yet, because, in the span of that month, he managed to get the police department called not once, but three times, to his property. The first and second calls were legitimate; with October creeping up, some of the high school kids thought it was a rite of passage to go and get drunk in a cornfield, and Kirk’s just happened to be the closest to the main road. The third call, though, that one was made by none other than little Demora Sulu herself. She’d seen a man in the fields at nine as her fathers tried to wrestle her into bed and, in an act of civic duty that she’d learned from the police officer that visited her class only a few days prior, she called 9-1-1, crying about how <em> “Mister Kirk’s gonna get hurt!” </em>because the man appeared to be holding a weapon as he approached the house.</p><p>The cops, with nothing better to do on a Tuesday night, came as quick as they could, and were not pleased to find Kirk himself in his field, chasing around a pair of raccoons that he’d heard chittering about. The weapon Demora thought she’d seen was his bat, a hunk of steel he kept around from his little league days and carried with him whenever he had to leave the house at night. Officer Pike, having known Kirk for the better part of twenty years, just chuckled at the situation and had an informative chat with the young girl and her parents about ensuring that a situation was actually an emergency before calling in. </p><p>Bright and early the next morning, Kirk found himself opening his front door to see Ben and his daughter, sheepish smiles on their faces. Demora held a pan of brownies wrapped in foil, and Kirk invited them in. While the little girl searched around his house, curiosity getting the best of her, Ben and Kirk sat down to chat. Turns out, the Sulus found themselves in Bumfuck Nowhere, Iowa, because of Ben’s husband, Hikaru. </p><p>Now, minus the situation with the police, Kirk never actually saw Hikaru, much less spoke to the other man, but you’d think he’d have hung the stars with the way Ben talked about him. He came to Iowa to study corn growth for some fancy doctoral thesis that, in all honesty, Kirk didn’t completely understand. He just nodded along as Ben stumbled his way through the explanation. Demora’d chosen then to start raving about the big field out back, and, as an olive branch, Kirk offered to show her around, to let her see what her father’s work would impact. </p><p>Excited, Ben immediately agreed and got Kirk’s number to set up a date. Later that night, he received two texts, one from Ben introducing himself, and one from another number, identifying themself as Hikaru. Together, they set up the following Saturday as the day for Demora to come over.</p><p>As fate had it, they found themselves with a tornado watch in their little part of Iowa, so they rescheduled for the following Friday.</p><p>And now, on Friday, September 15th, Kirk finds himself putting the visit off one more day.</p><p>He walks downstairs, careful to avoid the one step that’s still a bit loose, and through the hallway, into the kitchen. Finding the cereal box, he grabs it, and -</p><p>it’s empty.</p><p>“Seriously?” he mutters. </p><p>The box doesn’t respond; frankly, if it had, he’d welcome it. At least a talking box would be a break from the damn monotony he seems to be stuck in. </p><p>James Kirk is thirty-five years old. He graduated high school, then college. He has a degree in agriculture from Iowa State and his dad’s old farm. He has friends (well, a friend, singular. He’s not desperate enough to latch onto his neighbors as friends yet) that he made as an adult. He lives comfortably, and he is incomprehensibly, unequivocally, fucking bored with his life.</p><p><em> Goddamn</em>, he thinks to himself, scrubbing his face with a palm, <em> is this it? Is this what the rest of my life is going to look like? </em></p><p>His dad had his shit together, but Kirk is not his father. He isn’t about to shack up with his high school sweetheart, have two kids, and bite the dust. </p><p>First of all, he didn’t have a high school sweetheart. Unsurprisingly, being a gay man living in Iowa doesn’t make for the stereotypical teen indie film. He’s had a few flings, yeah, but nothing concrete, nothing stable. The closest thing he has to a stable male presence in his life is Bones, who, unfortunately, wouldn’t want to tap his ass if he paid him. They know too much about each other at this point for it to be anything but weird.</p><p>Second of all, he doesn’t want kids. Sure, the Sulus are adorable and all, but he’d never want a kid for himself. It’s just not in the stars for him.</p><p>Third of all, he doesn’t plan on dying anytime soon.</p><p>All in all, not the recipe for happiness Dad left in the family cookbook.</p><p><em> Fuck it,</em> he thinks. He drops the cereal box into the almost-full trashcan and leaves the kitchen, taking the steps two at a time. He creeps back into his own bedroom, drawing the blinds shut as he falls onto his covers. <em> I’m going back to bed </em>.</p><p>-</p><p>For the second time in one day, a new record, really, James Kirk falls out of bed.</p><p>“The fuck?” he slurs, wincing as his still-raw elbow hits the floor, cracking against the wood hard enough to bruise. He pushes himself up off the floor and stumbles to the window that faces the back of his property.</p><p>At half-past eight o’clock, the sun is setting beautifully against the horizon. It paints the land in a shade warm enough to wrap yourself in, and it reaches up into the sky, streaking against deep blue with pinks and reds that drip onto every star in its path. The light turns his field into a sea of gold that, unlike its usual uniform edge, has a gouge in the center of it, angry skid marks paving their way through half of the stalks, ending in a small, yet still noticeable, crater.</p><p>“Holy shit,” Kirk says, because, as he looks closer at the new addition to his field, there seems to be something gleaming in the last rays of the day. “Holy shit!”</p><p>He scrabbles for his phone, almost lost in the bedsheets, and bounds down the stairs, not even bothering to grab shoes as he flies outside, screen door banging behind him. He tears down the makeshift path the crash created, running as fast as his feet will take him. </p><p>As he gets closer, the gleaming spot he’d seen from his window grows larger and larger until it's the size of a damn Honda CRV, and that’s just what he can see of it. Whatever it is, it’s half-buried in the soil he so carefully cultivates his life’s work on.</p><p><em> Out of everything </em> , he thinks, stopping at the edge of the object, <em> why’d you have to crush my corn? </em></p><p>The object isn’t anything like Kirk’s ever seen, at least, in person. If he had to place it, he’d say that it looks like something from an alien world. </p><p><em> Did the Air Force crash something in my field? </em> he thinks, staring up at the rapidly darkening sky. <em> FBI? CIA? Some other agency? </em></p><p>Against every self-preservational instinct he has, he kicks it. When nothing happens, he tries not to feel too let down.</p><p>
  <em> It’s probably just some satellite or something.  </em>
</p><p>He walks around the object, inspecting it. It’s roughly a large rectangle, with two cylinders at its sides. There’s something written on it, probably some sort of code, that he can’t read. As he nears the front of the ship, he notices that it starts to slope down, forming something akin to a car’s windshield, and, to his increasing alarm, it’s shattered.</p><p>Kirk crouches down, trying to see inside of the ship, and the moment he gets a clear view, he feels his mind push the big red <em> PANIC! </em>button inside his head, because, strapped to a chair is a man.</p><p>“Oh, Jesus,” he says, feeling nauseous. The man is unconscious, only held upright by the x-cross of straps across his chest, but the more he looks at the man, the more he (<em> they? </em>he questions) seems to be nothing of the sort.</p><p>Their facial features are human enough, with two eyes, a nose, mouth, and ears, but the ears end in points, and their eyebrows slant upwards, harsh compared to the soft curve of Kirk’s own. A cut runs from the edge of their cheekbone going up, veering dangerously close to their eye, and disappears under the edge of their bangs, cut in a neat line. Their skin is spattered with green, oddly textured against the rest of their pale face.</p><p>Kirk reaches a hand out, brushing against the being’s skin, and immediately recoils upon feeling the green.</p><p>It isn’t the being’s skin at all.</p><p>It’s their blood. The being is bleeding.</p><p>Kirk swears under his breath. He can’t leave them out in his field, not in good conscience. He knows damn well what comes out at night, and he isn’t about to leave someone who's already injured in the hands of the local wildlife. </p><p>The being shifts, a minuscule action, but Kirk catches it. They’re going to wake up soon, and he doesn’t want to be alone when they do.</p><p><em> I need to bring them inside</em>, he decides, <em> and then I’ll call Bones. </em></p><p>Cautiously, he climbs through the shattered windshield, crouching to get over to the being. The metal object, what Kirk can only assume used to be some kind of spacecraft, isn’t tall enough for a grown man to stand inside. He kneels in front of the being, and, spotting something similar to a seatbelt clasp, undoes it, and the belts holding the being whip back into their holders. </p><p>Without the belts holding them in, the being slumps forwards, and Kirk catches them before they hit the floor. Carefully, he tries to pick them up, struggling for a moment with their weight. They seem to be of similar height and build to Kirk himself, but they’re much heavier than he is. Nonetheless, he picks them up, sliding an arm over his shoulders, and he gets himself, along with his guest, outside of the craft.</p><p>Back in the open air, Kirk stands at his full height, and he maneuvers the being into a bridal carry, trying to avoid rustling them about. The being’s clothes, deep gray robes overtop a light gray tunic, all in a fabric that’s in the uncanny valley of textures, cover his arms, and without wearing them himself, he can tell that they’re lightweight, much lighter than they appear to be. The clothes share the same odd, inhuman quality with their wearer, of something Kirk feels like he’s seen before, fully knowing that he hasn’t. </p><p>Slowly, he begins the trek back home, keeping a steady, even pace. The sky behind him is black, broken up by the small spatters of light that the stars give off. </p><p><em> Holy hell, </em> he thinks, glancing down at the being in his arms, lit only by moonlight. <em> What am I going to do? </em></p><p>-</p><p>Kirk reaches his back porch quickly, and he stretches the arm underneath the being’s knees in order to open the door. He steps inside and immediately goes to his couch. As gently as he can be, he sets them down atop well-worn cushions, finding a throw pillow and putting it under their head.</p><p>Once the being is stable, he takes out his phone from his pocket, dialing the only number, aside from emergency services, he knows by heart.</p><p>“Bones,” he says, staring at the being on his couch, “you’re never going to fuckin’ believe this.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>hello! thank you for making it to the end of chapter one!</p><p>I've been a fan of trek for nearly six years, yet I only managed to write a fic now. weird.</p><p>lots of exposition! the first few chapters are always like that for longfics. my last fic, which topped about 75k or so, was a damn mountain of exposition in the beginning. it's worth it, though. promise!</p><p>I don't want to bore anyone, so I'll keep this note short! I have a few ideas for this fic, aside from the main plot line, and I hope y'all will like them.</p><p>like something? hate something? want to see me crash a shuttle? let me know! comments are fantastic, especially when I've been staring at a laptop screen for the better part of a whole day. </p><p>my tumblrs are @strawberryicebreakers for my main and @copperbasedblood for trek-specific content. hit me up!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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